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“I think we would have done everything differently,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently told NBC, admitting that harsh complaint about his state’s strict COVID-19 lockdown policies was “legitimate” in hindsight.
Looking in the rearview mirror, the strict COVID-19 lockdowns imposed in California and other states have indeed been a disaster. But it was a collective failure of public policy, as Newsom observed. Public officials have a duty to look back and review what they knew – or deserved to have known – before proposing or implementing the various shutdown policies advised through federal officials. The draconian social and economic measures imposed through many state officials, coupled with the prolonged closure of schools and businesses, have had multiple costly consequences that have weighed heavily on Americans for a long time.
That’s why congressional investigators are digging deeper into the rationale for federal officials’ directives related to COVID-19 shutdowns. States, especially those where the strictest restrictions have been implemented, are following suit. These revisions may simply help lawmakers avoid reckless government overreach when the next pandemic hits.
COVID lockdown data. Peer-reviewed work by a foreign team of researchers led by Dr. Steve Hanke, professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University, Did the Lockdowns Work?The verdict on COVID restrictions offers a smart overview. A comprehensive review of the literature, the first study of its kind. Searching a wide diversity of countries, through Hanke, Dr. Lars Jonung of Lund University in Sweden and Dr. Jonas Herthrough of the Center for Policy Studies in Denmark, they examined more than 19,000 studies, but focused on 22 applicable studies with real-world mortality data. Their “meta-analysis” tested the explicit dating between mortality and lockdown restrictions, adding mandatory stay-at-home orders, business and school closures, and mask mandates, specifically in the workplace.
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Hanke and his colleagues tested the rapid effect of certain government mandates exclusively on mortality. Among other findings, they concluded that stay-at-home orders reduced COVID mortality by 1. 4 to 4. 1 percent; business closures up to 7. 5%; school closures between 2. 5 percent and 6. 2 percent; and masking mandates, specifically in the workplace, up to 18. 7 percent.
Looking at the overall effect of those restrictions in Europe and the U. S. , the U. S. In the U. S. , Hanke and his colleagues found that “. . . the spring 2020 lockdowns in Europe prevented between 6,000 and 23,000 deaths. To put those numbers in context, in an average flu season, around 72,000 cases are recorded in Europe. Our effects obviously showed that lockdowns had negligible effects on public health when measured through mortality.
COVID masking data. In a 2023 study, a team of researchers published in the Cochrane Review conducted the most comprehensive literature review (78 studies) on mask use to date and concluded: “There is uncertainty about the effects of face masks. The certainty of the evidence is low to moderate, meaning that our confidence in the estimate of effect is limited and that the actual effect would possibly be different from the estimate of the observed effect. The combined effects of RCTs (randomised controlled trials) did not show a net relief in respiratory viral infections with the use of surgical medicines/masks. Randomized controlled trials are the “gold standard” of educational research.
The Cochrane researchers noted that there is an additional need for “large-scale, well-designed” studies in settings and populations, as well as degrees of “adherence,” to better understand the efficacy of masking. Hanke and his colleagues agree on the need for long-term studies in this area, he says.
The Swedish experience. Notably, Swedish officials have pursued much less restrictive policies than European and U. S. officials. They focused on informing the public and voluntarily adhering to public fitness recommendations, adding social distancing. In The Frontiers of Public Health (2023), researchers recently reported: “Existing official statistics at the European and global level related to overall COVID-19-related mortality rates and overall excess mortality rates suggest that Sweden has been less affected than most comparable countries that have implemented stricter containment measures. “
In a broader context, Hanke and his colleagues observe, “Social distancing works. If you stay away from others, you reduce your risk of contracting a communicable disease. However, just because social distancing works doesn’t mean it’s not mandatory Pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs), commonly referred to as “lockdowns” (policies that limit internal movement, close schools and businesses, prohibit overseas and/or other activities) work.
Censorship of science. However, there is no educational consensus on the effect of lockdowns. For example, Britain’s Royal Society published a 2023 study concluding that lockdowns contained viral contagion well and reduced mortality. Hanke and his colleagues question the Royal Society’s findings because of their methodological flaws, particularly lumping together the effects of government mandates and voluntary compliance.
Previously, Hanke and his colleagues published the methodological protocol for their assignment in July 2021 on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN), a leading educational platform for papers. In March 2022, the SSRN published a critique of the newspaper, but in August 2023 it rejected it. to post a reaction from Hanke and his colleagues.
Since educational freedom is essential for the advancement of science, censorship or the “displacement” of educational debate is manifestly unacceptable, especially in the field of public health, where public protection so occasionally depends on the quality of educational research. Extensive COVID-19. No surveillance program will have to suffer the consequences of censorship or repression of clinical dissent.
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Seldom is there a binary selection between protective public fitness and the preservation of some semblance of social and economic normalcy. Public fitness is threatened only by viral contagion, but also by draconian social and economic lockdowns.
As Dr. Daniel Johnson, former president of the American Medical Association, pleaded at the start of the pandemic: “The difficult political task is to protect lives and livelihoods, a prudential balance that can safeguard public health holistically.
Too often this has not happened. In his e-book The Contagion Next Time, Dr. Sandro Galea, dean of Boston University’s School of Public Health, recounts his own studies on the effect of lockdowns on public health: “We have found that lockdowns and socially restrictive policies can be negative for fitness in emerging countries in the short and long term. creating specific demanding situations for vulnerable populations. Our paintings suggest that the adverse consequences of such policies be taken into account in decision-making related to the response to the pandemic.
Today, few question the negative consequences of COVID-19 lockdown policies: primary economic disruptions and high unemployment; the closure of thousands of businesses and the loss of small businesses, in addition to those of minorities; unprecedented increases in the federal deficit, spending, and debt; serious harm to children’s education; worsening economic and educational inequalities; social isolation and higher intellectual aptitude problems; and of course, the loss of personal freedom.
Personally, Dr. Galea leans to the left, but as a research scientist, he rightly asserts that smart public health policy is not, and will not be, an ideological issue. Progress depends on a competent evaluation of the evidence, open clinical debate, and falsified knowledge, everything. Uncensored.
Public fitness promotes and protects the fitness of individuals and the communities where they live, learn, work, and play.
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